Anaheim parents suspected of keeping 11-year-old autistic son in a cage

ANAHEIM - An intellectually disabled 11-year-old boy and his younger siblings are in protective custody today and their parents under arrest for allegedly keeping him caged, police said.

The boy is autistic and unable to communicate, said Anaheim police Lt. Bob Dunn.

Dunn described the cage, which was kept inside the single family residence in the 1300 block of Garrett Street, as being of a type normally used to house a pet.

A complaint was initially made to Orange County Child Protective Services, Dunn said, and police went to the location around 6 p.m. Tuesday. There are ‘varying reports” of how long the boy has been caged -- “from several years to several months to several hours,” Dunn said, adding that he appeared to have become too much for his parents to handle.

The cage was “the means his parents used to control him,” Dunn said.

The boy will undergo a medical check, he said, and a strategy will be devised to best to communicate with him.

Dunn said the boy’s’ siblings, a boy and a girl, are 10 and 8. They and the disabled boy are in good physical condition, he said.

Their Vietnamese parents speak English, but not fluently, Dunn said. They were arrested on suspicion of felony child endangerment and felony false imprisonment, he said.